Winemaker Notes
From the blackberry / black cherry, roasted Herbs de Provence, freshly sharpen lead pencil and cedar notes to the mineral background that is the signature of Rockpile. This is a full-bodied wine for sure, but with great tension, that delivers freshness and vibrancy to this elegant wine.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Syrah Domaine Des Chirats is a more backward wine that just exudes a sense minerality and a liqueur of rocks like character. Deep purple-colored with an awesome nose of bloody blue fruits, ground pepper, graphite, and violets, it builds incrementally on the palate with full-bodied richness, ultra-fine tannins, and an incredible sense of purity and precision. This isn't a blockbuster yet seems to have one foot in the Rhone Valley and one foot in Sonoma. It's going to benefit from 3-4 years of bottle age and cruise for 15+ years or more. Rating: 96+
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine is a collaboration with Yves Cuilleron from the northern Rhône. The 2016 Syrah Rockpile Cuilleron Collaboration Domaine des Chirats has an opaque ruby color and wonderful fragrance! Violets, lilacs and dried lavender aromas mingle with scents of crushed stone and graphite. Very slowly it opens to cracked black pepper, cured meats, cassis, baked black cherries, turned earth and blueberries. The full-bodied palate is floral and mineral-focused, offering more restraint and prettiness than the other Syrahs from the Jeff Cohn lineup. It has firm, pleasantly chewy tannins and very good freshness, finishing long and perfumed. This is intense, elegant and utterly classic. 332 cases produced.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
High elevation vineyards—800 to 2,100 feet—on well-drained soils of red and brown clay loam, gravel and large rock outcroppings produce low yields of intense, high-quality fruit. Surrounded by Northern Sonoma County and overlapping Dry Creek Valley in its northwest corner, the Rockpile AVA produces some of California most powerful Zinfandel, Petit Sirah, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon based wines.